1. Technical Field
One or more embodiments relate generally to organizing and classifying social media posts. More specifically, one or more embodiments relate to intelligent classification of social media messages to improve customer service.
2. Background and Relevant Art
Social media is an increasingly popular means of facilitating discussions regarding a variety of topics, especially in the area of customer service feedback. For example, a social media user may post a question regarding products or services. As another example, a social media user may use social media messages to voice a complaint or provide other feedback regarding a business' product or service. The social media user may post social media messages directly to a business, such as a business's social media site, or indirectly by mentioning (e.g., tagging) the business in a social media message post.
In some instances, a discussion may ensue based on the user's social media message. For example, a user's social media message may initiate a social media discussion that is centered on a question or issue the user is having, or the user's opinion regarding a product or service. Social media posts may grow into lengthy discussions that can span for days, weeks, or even months. As the length of social media discussions increase, a business may struggle to address each issue posted in the social media discussion, especially if the topic of the social media discussion frequently changes.
In many case, the business (or a representative or agent responding for a business) may only respond to the most recent question posted in the social media message. As the social media discussion grows, however, the original focus of the social media discussion may shift to different topics. For example, if the user's original issue is resolved, the user may continue asking questions in the same discussion thread. Further, other users may also interject questions, comments, and opinions into the social media discussion. When this happens, the business may fail to recognize some questions in the social media discussion. In addition, the representative may miss potentially helpful answers, compliments, or other feedback that other social media users post in the social media discussion.
As another problem, social media discussions that include multiple topics and exchanges between a representative and multiple users are often difficult for businesses to accurately classify. In other words, a business may initially categorize a social media discussion at the start of the social media discussion, however, as the social media discussion grows, the initial classification may no longer appropriately characterize the social media discussion.
Further, when the business reviews and analyzes past discussions to determine points of success and failure, the business may miss out on the opportunity to use an unrecognized discussion to improve future social media discussions on an individual social media discussion level. To illustrate, a social media discussion may address and resolve multiple customer issues. The business, however, may only recognize the last topic discussed in the social media discussion when analyzing the discussion for successes and failures. Alternatively, the business may only recognize the first questions in the social media discussion. The social media discussion, however, may include a number of additional resolved issues. In other words, the business can overlook one or more other issues in the social media discussion buried within the social media discussion. As a result, the business can lose the opportunity to accurately measure, analyze, study, and learn from each success or failure that occurs in a social media discussion.
Further, the business may lose opportunities to properly measure the effort of social media management among multiple social media discussions. For example, the business may lose the opportunity to measure the number of resolved cases or the number of answered questions in a particular category of conversation, such as complaints, questions and answers, or in a general forum. Also, the business may fail to measure and/or recognize which users are loyal customers, at-risk customers, or spammers. Without this and other similar information, the business may not be able to optimally allocate their time and priorities to appropriate content and/or users.
Thus, there are several disadvantages to current methods for intelligent classification of social media messages.